Wild Eyed and Wicked – Movie Review (3/5)

WILD EYED AND WICKED is a new fantasy horror-drama with both solid scares, an eerie vibe, and so much heart. A dark fairytale in many ways. Read our full Wild Eyed and Wicked movie review here!

WILD EYED AND WICKED is a fantasy horror-drama made with a very low budget. However, you would not know that by watching it. The production value is very impressive, the dialogue flows effortlessly, and the cast is awesome.

Its one (minor) downfall is perhaps that it wants to do a little too much at once. You can watch this movie as a dark fairytale. However, as with any fairytale, there is more to the story than meets the eye, so you can also dive into its symbolism.

Continue reading our Wild Eyed and Wicked movie review below. Find it on Digital from June 11, 2024.

Psychological horror set in Fantasy

With Wild Eyed and Wicked, we follow Lily Pierce (Molly Kunz) as she tries to finally deal with the death of her mother. Actually, that’s just a very simple way of describing her efforts.

What she’s actually doing, is fighting a medieval creature that has haunted her family for generations. She saw the creature when her mom died, but no one really believed her. Now, as an adult, she is haunted by the creature in brutal nightmares.

Every single night.

Before she can go back home and fight this creature, she needs to reconnect with her estranged father, Gregory (Michael X. Sommers). He is a disgraced history professor, who lost himself when his wife died.

So much so that he wasn’t a good father to Lily, who needed her dad more than ever when her mom died. Watching the two reconnect is painful and realistic, but also shown as an actual process more than a quick fix. Huge kudos to the filmmaker for this!

As the final battle approaches, Lily needs a medieval outfit to battle the creature. She finds her mother’s armor and can build on what she learned. A huge advantage before the big showdown.

A small but impressive cast

In the lead role of Lily, we see Molly Kunz, who is simply perfect. Magical even. Somehow, I managed to completely buy into the fact that she needed to dress up as a knight to battle a medieval creature. Both the actor and writer-director get credit for this.

Also, Michael X. Sommers (Sense8) is wonderful as her father. One minute, you can easily understand why she has kept her distance. The next, it’s obvious that he is actually trying his best. And he is clearly making progress.

We also see Lily’s therapist (Colleen Camp) and Lily’s loving new girlfriend, Willow (Claire Saunders). Both are doing their best to help Lily as she deals with the childhood loss of her mother. However, both also acknowledge that Lily needs to do things in her own way.

Finally, there’s Lily’s mother. We see her both in flashbacks and during those brutal nightmares plus in visions created by the creature. Her name is Silvia and she’s portrayed by Stefanie Estes.

I will gladly admit that we decided we had to screen and review this because of Stefanie Estes’ participation. Ever since watching her in Soft & Quiet, she has won us over completely! You may also recognize her from Bethany or Tales from the Loop.

Having said that, the rest of the cast also manages to completely live up to the high expectations we had of Stefanie Estes. I cannot wait to see what especially Molly Kunz does next in genre productions. She’s co-lead in the NBC primetime show The Irrational.

Watch Wild Eyed and Wicked on Digital now!

The writer and director of Wild Eyed and Wicked is G.S. Foxwood, and this is the feature film debut of the fascinating new filmmaker. It’s executive produced by Elizabeth Foxwood and their company New Mythology Productions.

Wild Eyed and Wicked was shot in just 16 days on a real-life family farm outside of Philadelphia. It’s also where G.S. Foxwood grew up and now lives. Lily’s story is even inspired by Elizabeth Foxwood’s work in recovery regarding trauma and mental health battles. She’s a medical doctor in NYC and Pennsylvania.

In the press release, the movie is described as a story about facing your demons by “… throwing on armor, grabbing a sword, and dueling them to the death” which is acutely accurate for what the movie shows us.

Of course, a story with such content will also blend horror, drama, and fantasy with a psychological twist that results in a movie that is both terrifying and very emotional. I enjoyed this combination and would recommend everyone check it out.

Wild Eyed and Wicked is out in North America on TVOD/Digital on June 11, 2024. Further details on the worldwide roll-out are still to come.

Details

Director: G.S. Foxwood
Writer: G.S. Foxwood
Stars: Molly Kunz, Stefanie Estes, Michael X. Sommers, Claire Saunders, Colleen Camp, William Ford-Conway, Evyn Flanders